Monday, January 20, 2014

CES 2014, January 8 - January 10

So this post is late... I've been busy but with an extra day off, I've felt like it's time to play catch up.
So on Wednesday morning at 3:30 am we were to meet at a church parking lot to get ready for an adventure to VEGAS!
Around 4:30 am we left Riverside, CA for Las Vegas, Nevada. With a pit stop at a Denny's in Bakers for breakfast.
It was a long night of driving, not for me but in the passenger seat it was. We filled the hours with old school music and just random stuff to pass the time. The time it takes to get to Bakers was only about an hour and a half so it wasn't too bad.
One oopsy was that the whole carpool thing failed on the way to Bakers. Normally we all stay together and follow each other, that failed miserably. After Bakers though it lasted until vegas woo! so that means only about a 50% fail?

Our carpool this year. 14 cars long!

Welcome to Nevada!

After getting into vegas, we parked at the hotel parking lot and made our way to the convention center. I am not gonna even lie about how much walking there was and it was so much better doing it in flat than heeled boots like I did last time.
We started with all the cars and there were so many. I'm not the biggest car person but so shinny and pretty! here's one of the booths to just show off 1, how many people and 2, the size of just the Ford booth.

#FordCES booth. There were sooooo many cars!

And camera stuff was great to see. I honestly didn't think there was like anything BRAND new and crazy, but it was still cool to see the new stuff they were going to be putting out and hear from the people themselves about the products they had.

Nikon

These were the large telescopic lens and they were amazing.

We left the convention a little early on the first day, at this point, I still only had 1 hour of sleep and we needed to still check into the hotel rooms. Before it was time to check in, and we needed everyone before we could check in, we went for dinner at Chipotle, just bc it was cheap.

and of course, all the guys on their smart phones.

After checking in and relaxing for a couple hours, there was an open bar at LAVO so we all, who were legal, ended up there.

Selfie with Randy and Sallia

Justin and Jerica, these two are just too cute.

LAVO SELFIE #CES2014

April and Joe

One more before the sign broke.

It was a great time clubbing with everyone, it allowed us all to just get away from our usual of only hanging out at the solarium and got to just have fun. There was cases of shoes coming off and not remembering the entire night but it was still lots of fun.

Day 2 of the conference was more exploring!

Poloraid camera, it's a new one!

And Project Runway winner Dom Streeter! It was great to see someone I knew!

At the IEEE booth

Even represented a bit

and with SWE <3

Belkin booth was HUGE

First we did the group buffet. The group buffet was at Paris but sadly we were not able to all site together. That part always sucks just a little bit but it makes sense to keep us from having to pay gratuity.
That evening a group of us went bull riding which I only have videos of. We grabbed a fat tuesday and headed down the strip to planet hollywood. It was too much fun. We even ended up on a party bus. The party bus was great there and back, it allowed everyone to just let loose and have fun with a random strip poll in the middle and the music blasting full blast.

Day 3 One more day of exploring but so tired I didn't actually go too far.

3D printer stuff

Brandon's head next to a 4K projector

more 3D printed cool stuff

Look who ended up on the INTEL book display

After the conference, which ended a little bit earlier, we hit the buffets to complete our 24 hour buffet.
It was pretty oblivious that all of us were getting pretty tired.

Brandon even fell asleep at the table.

Then one more night of clubbing at TAO with everyone. It wasn't quiet as fun as the first night but it was still a good time. I got a bunch of them to go dancing that weren't there the first night.

Andrew posing with the statues

It was crazy though, because first there was a guy hitting on a bunch of the girls in our group, a purse was stolen (but found thank goodness), and then Justin missed his bus. But it was fun to get to hang out with Kelly Kim again other people. But sucked since I then had to go and rework car situations with Justin. but it all worked out which is the best about that.

Because I had to be back before noon, we had to get up SUPER early. Up at 6:30 and left by 7:30

The sight out the window was gorgeous.

It was a long ride home while tired but Justin fell asleep and just had to take a picture

On the way home

It was a good trip, lots of fun and networking/bonding with my IEEE chapter and classmates.